Foreign Correspondent: One Night in Cologne

Foreign Correspondent: One Night in Cologne

Airs Tuesday, March 29 at the new time of 9.30pm on ABC & iview

A mob sexual assault on young women revellers on New Year's Eve snapped Germany's celebrated tolerance of mass migration. What happened? Why was it hushed up? How has it changed the nation? Barbara Miller investigates.

'Welcome culture" – the generosity that has seen Germany embrace more than a million new migrants in the past year – is wearing thin.

If there was a single moment that sowed doubt in the national psyche, it came during New Year's Eve festivities outside Cologne's Gothic cathedral.

"The whole place in front of the cathedral was full of people and after some moments we realised it was just men. They were pushing and pulling at our clothes" – Michelle, New Year's Eve reveller

Just as Chancellor Angela Merkel delivered her televised New Year's speech with a plea for tolerance and integration, hundreds of women in Cologne were being surrounded, sexually assaulted and robbed by rampaging bands of drunken men. Two women were allegedly raped.

"They touched us everywhere they could, between the legs and at our breasts" – Michelle

T"he girls pushed them away but they forced themselves on the girls" – Yassin, Moroccan migrant and eyewitness

As Europe Correspondent Barbara Miller reports, police and media initially downplayed the incident. But as days went by, Germans learned that more than 1000 complaints of sexual assault and theft had been lodged, with the alleged assailants being described as North African and Middle Eastern.

So Germany has been plunged into a culture war. Refugee supporters, derided for politically correct 'misguided tolerance" of migration, are suddenly on the defensive. The German Right is on the march.

'There has always been a small right wing movement... but a lot smaller than neighbouring countries because Germany really learnt its lesson after the Nazi era. But I am convinced that we have, for the first time since 1945, a growing right wing movement" – veteran magazine editor and feminist Alice Schwarzer

By delving into the New Year's Eve incident, Barbara Miller explores what some Germans call a 'culture of silence", born of Nazi times, that has long stifled national discussion on race issues. She asks how that one night in Cologne might change Germany. Will it be seen as a trigger for more open debate, or as a convulsion that further divides Germans and stokes the fires of racism?

Foreign Correspondent: One Night in Cologne airs 9.30pm on Tuesday March 29 on ABC & iview. Also available on iview.